Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - On the occasion of the Annual General Assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies, Ciampino (Rome) 6 to 14 May, Fides put a few questions to Father Fernando Galbiati, PIME, ad interim Secretary General of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
Why do the Pontifical Mission Societies hold an annual general assembly and who takes part ?
The objective of the AGA is to take stock of the last 12 months of activity undertaken by the International Secretariats of the four Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS), and also to discuss requests for help sent in by young Churches in mission territories all over the world for all sorts of needs. On the basis of these requests, which are sent in with documentation and approval of the local respective Bishop, funds collected during the year by National and Diocesan PMS offices sent to the PMS Universal Solidarity Fund here in Rome, are distributed as equally as possible in order to meet all the needs. The Assembly consists of a first part, the Pastoral Session in which specific topics with regard to evangelisation and missionary cooperation and the life of the Church are presented and considered.
The AGA is for National Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies, today 120 of many different nationalities, and it is presided by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the President of the Pontifical Mission Societies and the General Secretaries of the four Pontifical Mission Societies
What is the programme this year ?
The assembly being held at the Hotel Pala Cavicchi, Ciampino (Rome), 6 to 14 May, will open with an address by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. The Congregation directs and co-ordinates missionary activity and cooperation all over the world. This year the Pastoral Session, 6 to 8 May, will examine the process of revising and updating the Statues of the Pontifical Mission Societies, the PMS Handbook and the Missionary Youth Movement started by the Italian Pontifical Mission Societies Office.
On Monday 10 the General secretaries of the four mission societies will present a report on the pastoral and economic activity of the last year. After time for discussion and questions there will be the examination of the requests and the distribution of funds. During the Assembly there will be an Audience with the Pope who, as usual, will encourage us in our work and offer guidelines with regard new challenges. Each day of the assembly will open with the celebration of Morning Prayer and Mass and close with the celebration of Vespers.
What are the Pontifical Mission Societies and what is their role in the Church?
The Pontifical Mission Societies are an important part of the Church. Their aim is to increase awareness of the Church’s missionary nature and the duty of all Catholics to share in her missionary work. Mission Sunday, the main missionary event of the year, instituted at the request of the Pontifical Mission Society for the Propagation of the Faith, is now a tradition celebrated at all levels. Although we speak of the Pontifical Mission Societies because they are four and because they were founded at different times, they are one and they have one common aim: to promote a universal spirit of mission among the entire People of God, that is the Church.
Tell us briefly about each of the four Pontifical Mission Societies
The Pontifical Mission Society for the Propagation of the Faith was started in Lyons by a young French woman Pauline Marie Jaricot. In 1816, at the age of 17, she renounced her life of comfort and founded a spiritual association with a group of young women working at her father’s factory. Two years later the group assumed the dimension of prayer and missionary animation and, in order to "help spread the Gospel", added a small weekly offering of money. Today the Society is present in 120 countries and it has become so important that without its prayers for the mission, the sacrifices and offerings of its members or from other Catholics the world over to the Universal Fund of Solidarity, the activity of evangelisation, come plantatio Ecclesiae and also its material development, would be very limited.
The Pontifical Mission Society for Holy Childhood or Missionary Childhood was started by a French Bishop, Charles August Marie de Forbin-Janson Bishop of Nancy, who was appalled at the atrocities committed in various parts of the world against children gave devotion to the Child Jesus a missionary dimension. The Mission Society for Holy Childhood was instituted on 19 May 1843 and was welcomed by individuals institutions involved in the education of children and it spread rapidly in Europe and North America. Today it operates in 110 different countries. The main goal of the Society is to help educators awaken and develop missionary awareness among children and teach them to be in spiritual communion with less fortunate children in mission territories.
The aim of the Pontifical Mission Society of St Peter Apostle, founded at Caen, France in 1889 by Mademoiselle Jeanne Bigard and her mother Stephanie, was to promote and support local supporting seminaries and houses of religious formation in mission territories. Financial assistance comes from the Universal Solidarity Fund which allows the programming and managing of institutes of formation.
The aim of the Pontifical Missionary Union, first known as the Missionary Union of the Clergy is to evangelise the world through those who like the apostles have received the mandate from Christ. The Union was founded by Blessed Paolo Manna who had to renounce missionary work in Burma because of ill health and dedicated the rest of his life to convincing people especially through publications, that missionary activity is a duty for all priests and all consecrated persons. The Union strives to spread missionary spirit among the people of God by increasing missionary awareness among priests and seminarians and encouraging missionary vocations ad vitam. Pope Paul VI rightly called it the «soul of the other three Pontifical Mission Societies». (S.L:) (Agenzia Fides 4/5/2004; Righe 79; Parole 1.112)
